When Cybersecurity Becomes an Executive Issue

Cybersecurity may be managed by IT, but the risk of attacks belongs to the entire institution.

Ransomware attacks, compromised accounts, or a third-party incident can have implications beyond IT that reverberate throughout the entire institution. Cybersecurity breaches raise difficult questions:

Who determines the institution’s tolerance for risk? Who weighs operational continuity against security? And who coordinates decisions across technology, legal, finance, communications, academic leadership, and other stakeholders?

At that point, cybersecurity has become an executive issue.

Cyber Risk Is Institutional Risk

According to Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research’s 2026 Survey of 130 Campus Chief Technology/Information Officers, 59 percent identify critical cybersecurity breaches or ransomware incidents as a top institutional risk through 2030. It’s not hard to see why.

Higher education presents a uniquely complex cybersecurity environment. Institutions manage sensitive student and employee information, financial data, and increasingly complex technology ecosystems, all while supporting open, collaborative academic environments.

“From a threat perspective, we’re seeing higher ed and downstream vendors get targeted more over the past six months to a year,” said JR Johnson, Director of Cybersecurity Services at Triaxiom Security, a Division of SIG. “Attackers are realizing that these institutions hold a lot of valuable data and there’s a lot more attack surface that they can take advantage of.”

And the consequences of a cybersecurity event can extend far beyond the systems involved. An incident can disrupt operations, affect teaching and learning, expose sensitive information, create financial and regulatory consequences, and damage institutional trust.

That’s why the conversation around cybersecurity is changing. IT can manage technology, but institutional leaders must manage risk.

The Hardest Cybersecurity Decisions Aren’t Always Technical

When institutions think about cybersecurity readiness, the conversation often begins with technology: Are our systems patched? Do we have MFA? Are we monitoring our environment?

Those are important questions — and ones that Triaxiom, a Division of SIG—can help you answer. But some of the most difficult cybersecurity decisions can’t be solved with another tool.

They require someone to determine priorities, assess institutional risk, bring stakeholders together, communicate clearly with leadership, and make decisions when there may not be a perfect answer.

During a Cyber Incident, Leadership Gaps Become Visible Fast

A major cybersecurity event has a way of revealing weaknesses that may have been difficult to see during normal operations. Roles that seemed clear can suddenly become uncertain. Communication can become fragmented.

Technical teams may be working around the clock while institutional leaders are simultaneously trying to understand the scope of the incident, make business decisions, communicate with stakeholders, and determine what happens next.

This is where experienced executive technology leadership becomes critical. The institution needs someone who can see both sides of the situation: the technology problem and the institutional impact.

Strong Cybersecurity Leadership Connects the Institution

EDUCAUSE describes today’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) as a strategic partner who connects security with risk, governance, institutional priorities, and executive decision-making.

That means bringing together people who may approach the same incident from very different perspectives:

• IT and cybersecurity need to understand what happened and contain the threat.
• Executive leadership must reckon with institutional exposure and make risk-based decisions.
• Legal and compliance need to evaluate regulatory and reporting obligations.
• Communications will be tasked with determining what should be communicated, when, and to whom.
• Finance and operations need to understand potential business disruption and financial impact.
• Academic leadership must grapple with how decisions may affect teaching, research, and students.

Someone has to connect those conversations. And that is fundamentally a leadership responsibility.

Don’t Wait for an Incident to Discover a Leadership Gap

The middle of a cybersecurity incident is a difficult time to determine who has decision-making authority. Institutions should understand their leadership structure before a crisis occurs. That means determining who owns cybersecurity risk at the institutional level — and who has authority to make critical decisions during an incident.

Cybersecurity preparedness isn’t only about preventing an attack. It’s about preparing the institution to lead through one.

SIG is uniquely equipped to both help colleges and universities identify and remedy vulnerabilities in their cybersecurity program before they disrupt critical operations — and provide the leadership you need to coordinate efforts in the event of an attack.

SIG offers on-demand executive IT leadership at three different tiers: full-time interim, for institutions navigating a leadership transition or conducting a permanent search; part-time fractional, for those who need senior-level insight without a full-time headcount commitment; and project-scoped, with a defined timeline and clear deliverables.

Let us know how we can help.  

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